A council is going to juggle £880,000 in Government cash to safeguard the full £3m revamp planned for Didcot’s railway station, hit by months of delays.

Oxfordshire County Council hoped to submit a planning application in October 2007 for the scheme, which would see the station’s forecourt modernised. However, the application has still not been submitted to South Oxfordshire District Council.

South Oxfordshire District Council has been given £880,000 by the Government for its part of the project on the proviso that it is spent by the end of the year.

There is a separate project to modernise the inside of the building. The council now plans to spend the £880,000 grant originally intended for the forecourt on updating the inside of the station.

Money put aside for the interior would then be spent on the forecourt next year when planning permission has been received, because the council wants to ensure the main project does not ultimately lose out on the Government cash.

John Cotton, the district council’s Cabinet member for Didcot, said: “It’s daft that we have to spend this money in an artificial time frame. It’s far better that we get the scheme right than spend the money three weeks early on a scheme that isn’t necessarily right.”

Without re-allocating the money, the county council, which is funding the majority of the project, would have to find the money elsewhere.

Adrian Saunders, the county council's rail development officer, said: “If for some reason there was a shortfall, we would no doubt work with our partners in the district council and Network Rail to explore alternative means of funding.”

The revamp could involve a bus-only area, more short-stay parking, a larger taxi rank, a new pedestrian piazza, wider walkways and a cycle route along station road.

Previously Network Rail, which owns the station, was blamed for delays over the design of the forecourt. It also wanted to combine the scheme with a project to revamp its own car park, in Vauxhall Road.

Network Rail spokesman Nathan Quigley said that it was not responsible for the latest hold-up.

He added: “The transport interchange is something that is being developed by the county council and the district council. It’s not up to us to put a plan in for that work.”